THE FIRST DAY

November 10, 1943, was a great day in the history of the Angle-Baltic kibbutz, From all over the country friends of the kibbutz. gathered to celebrate together the laying of the foundation stone of the first building of its permanent home, a home which will bear the proud name of Leon Blum.

The kibbutz itself was reunited for the occasion. A special lorry left Binyamina early in the morning, bringing those chaverim and chaverot who, for a long time, had been awaiting the end of the separation from the advance guard in Naame. The meeting of husband and wife at Naame on that day was an example of the great personal hardships which the kibbutz has been undergoing during these past two years when conditions made it necessary for families to be separated in order that the work at Naame should go on. It was also an example of the personal implications of the kibbutz's new opportunity to go ahead with its work in the certain knowledge that, within a short period of time, it will be able to create a home for all its members.

Other guests to whom the ceremony had a personal meaning were the members of Naame's neighboring settlements in Galilee. From all over the Huleh plain they came in order to wish good luck to their new young neighbors, who, together with them, have assumed the difficult task of reviving Galilee from its centuries-old stagnation. The veterans among them must have thought back to the old days when Jewish Galilee was a tiny, isolated province, entirely dependent on the Jewish settlements in the South for its spiritual and cultural sustenance, as well as for its physical security. Today they are seeing Upper Galilee developing into a flourishing Jewish center with a rich, pulsating life of its own.

Then there came the representatives of the various institutions which have been helping the kibbutz and which are to play a great part in its future development. First, of course, came the representatives of the Jewish national institutions: the Agricultural Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency; the Jewish National Fund, which has given the land; and the Keren Hayesod, which has undertaken to provide the settlement budget. Then there were representatives of the kibbutz movement, the Executive Committee of the Histadrut, and the other Histadrut institutions which play so great a part in forwarding the agricultural settlement of their members and affiliated bodies.

Finally there came a host of friends and acquaintances and, among them, members of Habonim from England, America, and South Africa, who see in this kibbutz the touchstone of the capacity of the Habonim movements in the English-speaking countries to render an effective contribution to the upbuilding of Palestine.

The guest of honor was the French Consul General in Jerusalem, who had come to welcome the settlers who were undertaking the building of a living tribute to a great French Jew.

A word must be said about the guests in uniform. These were members of the kibbutz who, for the past few years, have been serving the war effort in various parts of the Middle East. The day of celebration had brought them back to witness the commencement of the new and decisive stage in their settlement history. While they have been at their duty on active service against the enemy, their comrades on the home front have been rendering sterling service to Palestine's economic war effort; and, at Naame, they are now preparing the home to which those in the armed forces will be able to return, in peace and security, after the war. There was deep significance in this union between the man of the sword and the man of the plough, both engaged in different aspects of the same cause.

By two o'clock in the afternoon, the small courtyard on Naame hill was alive with hundreds of visitors. We sat down to lunch beneath a large succah built near the dining room and consisting of wooden posts supporting a leaf-bedecked, trellised roof. The food was excellent, and the spirit of camaraderie was even better. After the meal the speeches began, the proceedings being presided over by Dr. Granovsky, the Managing Director of the Jewish National Fund, who underlined the significance of the occasion.

The assembly then left the hill and began to make its way across the open fields to the banks of the Jordan, some two kilometers away, where Angle-Baltic's permanent home is to be built. A truck bringing refreshments preceded us to show the way; and, when it drew up, we knew that this was the place which would soon be covered by the buildings of the new village. There was no other indication. All around, the land was flat and bare, much of it still uncultivated. Climbing down into a small pit, Leopold Schen from England laid down the first few trowels of cement, embedding in them the foundation scroll, which had previously been read aloud to the assembled gathering. Subsequently there were more speeches, the most touching of them by Mr. Podhorzer, the chairman of the Safed Jewish Community Council, a venerable bearded man, who spoke of the days when Safed, the crown of Galilee, had been abandoned in its loneliness. He welcomed the pioneers, young enough to be his grandchildren, who had come from afar to restore Galilee to its former glory.

After the ceremony the guests gathered round the truck and were served with wine to drink "lechaim" to the new village. As dusk fell over Mount Hermon, we returned across the fields to the little hill which has been Anglo-Baltic's temporary home for the past two years.

After supper the fun really began. Most of the guests had gone back, and the atmosphere was now much more intimate and cozy. The celebration started off with a heart-to-heart talk by Leopold Schen. He spoke of the deep impression which had been made on him by the vitality of youth to which he had been a witness that day. Elias M. Epstein, of the Jewish National Fund head office, a tried and trusted friend of Kibbutz Angle-Baltic, spoke of the responsibility resting on the kibbutz as far as the movement in the English-speaking countries was concerned.

Then Harzfeld spoke about the subject which is uppermost in his heart and mind—settlement. He told of the difficulties which had to be overcome before the land for Angle-Baltic settlement had been obtained. He spoke about the difficulties which lay ahead. He "promised" the kibbutz that they were in for a tough time, and he "assured" them that he was not at all worried about it. The fact that their settlement budget would not, perhaps, be as large as it should be did not concern him. He told them that he had a new policy, a policy of doing a lot with a little, of dividing up his money among several settlements in order to make it go a long way. He told them that he was sure that, after what they had done in the past, they would be able to make a go of it themselves. As for him, he had new worries to contend with—there were other kibbutzim which still had no land and which were still waiting for the day of permanent settlement.

Somebody has said that the chalutzim are the true heirs of the Hasidim. There is a great deal of truth in that statement. A gathering of chalutzim, especially on such an occasion, always starts off with a great deal of analytical talk in the vein of the rationalistic Lithuanian anti-Hasidists—but it always ends up with a Hasidic melody. It was Harzfeld who started the singing, at about eleven o'clock at night; and it was not till after four that it ended. No one went to sleep that night. As dawn broke, a few tried to get a snatch of sleep; but, an hour later, in the dining hall, the tables were already being laid for the breakfast of a new working day. So was the birth of Kfar Leon Blum ushered in.

From FURROWS, November, 1944